Go deeper into international and competitive research

Montse says: “Conduct thorough international market and competitor research before crafting your localised marketing strategies.”

Why is this kind of research important for both international and local markets?

“It’s really important because, at this moment in time, our customers and target audiences are demanding personalised experiences. It’s no longer valid to just come up with an idea and spend that money or move on globally with your own strategies and techs.

You need to stop and think before you begin, because the competition has increased both online and offline. It’s really important that brands get to know their audiences as much as possible so that they can communicate with them in the best way. You need to understand not just the language they use, but also what they expect to find, what kinds of content they are looking for, and what formats they want to use.

It works both in global markets and your primary markets because things change all the time. Right now, things are not the same as they used to be in the past, and they will not be the same next year. Conducting thorough market and competitor research will keep your feet on the ground in terms of what you need to do.

From my point of view, there are 3 reasons why you need to take this research further. The first is that you need to avoid bias and fallacies. Fallacies are errors in judgment, whereas biases are more to do with our own preferences. Both of them are so deeply rooted in our psyches that we don’t even realise that we think the way we are thinking.

Therefore, you can’t make business decisions based on ideas that you have gathered from a holiday in Italy, France, the UK, or Spain. You need to deeply understand the behaviour in that market so that you can move forward with your business, be successful, and resonate with your audiences.”

What is the second reason why this deeper research is so important?

“The second point is about knowing the unknowns. These are the things that you don’t really know about, but they are there – or things that you know but you didn’t realise were important.

This is especially important when you are talking to people in a different market because their cultural perspectives will be different from yours. Cultural relevancy is becoming increasingly important these days. It goes beyond just using a particular language. Think about multilingual countries such as Spain, where there are 4 different co-official languages. Switzerland has 4 as well.

You need to find out which language people are using to find out about financial services, for example, or whether it is worth launching in a different language in that market. Is it useful? You need to find out.

The third point is segmentation. Once you get that data, you will be able to segment your target audience so that you can communicate well with all of them.

For example, the format of the content. From my experience, Germans like checklists, but do they work all the time for everything? In markets like France and Spain, they might like a bit more context to make those checklists more palatable. Those are the things that you need to take into account.

Right now, in each market, there will be what we call a ‘messy middle’: something that is unique, a gap between discovery and purchase. That is a code that you need to crack so that you can understand the purchase behaviour, and search behaviour, in each market.

I have worked in some Latin markets where technology brands were ranking for specific terms like ‘customer service’ and terms related to that, which most brands would usually only rank for when they are not well known. Whereas, similar brands would be ranking for other types of products in other markets simply because they are more mature.

You have to take into account different bits and pieces – not just the culture, but also the digital maturity of every country. Audiences will use different types of terms to search for brands, and therefore brands will rank for different types of terms. You need to find out why that is happening.”

How do you ensure that what you’ve been focusing on has an impact on the bottom line?

“The same way you usually would. Whenever you do any marketing campaign or SEO project, make sure to align with the marketing and business needs. Understand what you are trying to find out and what you’re trying to measure, but to know what you’re trying to measure, you need to understand the market.

You can then benchmark against those initial business needs to see how you have influenced the bottom line. There’s nothing special there. It’s nothing out of the ordinary, but I really want to make sure that everybody understands that you need to know the specifics of each target market/audience to be able to understand that.

I’ll give you an example: using imagery for a specific campaign. I know some retailers use the same types of images for the same campaign in the north of Spain and in the south, even though people search and behave very differently in the north and the south. Spain is very varied in terms of landscape, weather, culture, etc., so people behave in different ways.”

How do you go about researching and getting the data for markets that you don’t know?

“There are different processes and different ways to conduct research. You can gather 2 basic types of data. There’s primary data on the one hand, and then secondary data on the other.

Primary data is the kind of data that you gather yourself from your own tests, like A/B tests. When you’re trying to expand into a market, and you don’t know whether it is going to work, you might go with 1 or 2 products from your portfolio to see how that works. That is a test, and the data that you get is something that you can base your strategy on. If something has gone well, maybe it will also go well with your other products, and vice versa.

You can do primary research just by focusing on the usual focus groups. You can get groups of people from that country to talk to you about specific topics – or, for something that you want to launch, you can get somebody in that location to test it for you. You can use online tools such as Similarweb. That’s primary research.

There’s also secondary data, which is data that you find which has already been published. It can be published by a variety of sources and institutions, such as the European Commission in the EU. I check there quite frequently because they’ve got very good studies related to e-commerce on topics like bio-behaviour.

Tools sometimes publish good studies as well, or even institutions like the Pew Research Center. The issue with secondary data is that you have to take it with a pinch of salt because those studies have been published for a variety of purposes. The purpose behind the research might have nothing to do with you, but you can use it to start investigating and researching.

For example, a few months ago, the Pew Research Center published some data on content decay online and the results seemed strange. They were very interesting (and they do a fantastic job, generally) but, when I read that particular study, I thought it was peculiar. It was very clear to me that they had not consulted with a specialist. That is why you have to take everything with a pinch of salt.

One of the first things that you need to think about is using the most appropriate data sources and expertise. Even when you speak the language, if you are not in the country or you don’t have advanced knowledge of that market, you might miss things. You might actually stumble on something that is interesting, but you don’t have enough understanding of the language or the cultural norms to go deeper into it.

This is where somebody who has a deeper understanding of that language and that market can help you out. It is very important that you consult with them.”

How often should you be doing this?

“It should be done on an ongoing basis, but there are different ways to do it.

A big project can be undertaken once every so often, like once a year, depending on the situation. That might be when you want to expand to another country, or you want to see how things are going in a specific target market where you are already operating. You need to check that every so often. Perhaps not every month, but maybe once a year would be good.

However, this approach will be very useful on an ongoing basis. If you have that research mindset already in place, you can check things a bit more in-depth so that you are able to uncover different bits and pieces.

For example, Klarna, the payment company, wanted to expand into the Belgian market with a specific product. However, they didn’t find out until later that the name of it sounded really odd to Belgians.

Bear in mind that you need to do this from time to time, with a view to always implementing findings and recommendations. It’s a bit like a website audit. Why do something that takes such a long time if you’re not going to be able to implement anything later on?”

If an SEO is struggling for time, what should they stop doing right now so they can spend more time doing what you suggest in 2025?

“Stop and think to see what it is exactly that’s not working at that moment in time. For example, if a specific URL is not ranking for certain keywords, why is this not working?

Think about the content, particularly if it is localised content. Is it understandable? Can somebody understand it well? Is it well written in that language? Perhaps you need to update it with more information or fresh information. Perhaps you need to give it to somebody from that specific market to read it properly and help you update it.

It’s about stopping, thinking, and being very selective as to what you are doing.”

Montserrat Cano is an International SEO Expert and Project Manager, and you can find her over at Montserrat-Cano.com.